No more tape?

I was reading a (p)review of Windows Longhorn Server in the September issue
of APC magazine, and was surprised to find out that it drops standard
support for tape as a backup medium.

I've had very little exposure to tapes for data myself. But I was under the
impression that they were the medium of choice for fast, cost-effective,
high-volume backups. Obviously they're not that popular any more, otherwise
Microsoft wouldn't be leaving it to third parties to fill the gap.

Thoughts, anyone? Do you still use tapes for backup? Are they reliable? Do
they last very long?

ObLinuxBoosterSnipe: another interesting new feature in Longhorn Server is
the "Server Core" mode, where the installation runs without any local GUI
at all; just a bare command prompt to do initial configuration, with all
the rest being controlled remotely. Strike 1: that means you still need a
Windows GUI of some sort to manage the system, albeit on another machine.
And Strike 2: somebody neglected to tell the IIS folks about this feature,
so you can't install this on a machine running in Server Core mode.

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Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote, On 9/09/06 10.25 p:
> I was reading a (p)review of Windows Longhorn Server in the September issue
> of APC magazine, and was surprised to find out that it drops standard
> support for tape as a backup medium.
>
> I've had very little exposure to tapes for data myself. But I was under the
> impression that they were the medium of choice for fast, cost-effective,
> high-volume backups. Obviously they're not that popular any more, otherwise
> Microsoft wouldn't be leaving it to third parties to fill the gap.
>
> Thoughts, anyone? Do you still use tapes for backup? Are they reliable? Do
> they last very long?

Dropping support entirely? Now that is quite surprising...

It's true that the cost of HDDs is making all sorts of new backup
solutions quite attractive, but AFAIK tape is still predominant in
enterprise.

Although, I doubt many people who would backup to tape would be using
Microsoft Backup anyway (it sucks! )

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On Sat, 09 Sep 2006 22:25:39 +1200, Lawrence D'Oliveiro
<_zealand> wrote:
>I was reading a (p)review of Windows Longhorn Server in the September issue
>of APC magazine, and was surprised to find out that it drops standard
>support for tape as a backup medium.
>
>I've had very little exposure to tapes for data myself. But I was under the
>impression that they were the medium of choice for fast, cost-effective,
>high-volume backups. Obviously they're not that popular any more, otherwise
>Microsoft wouldn't be leaving it to third parties to fill the gap.
>
>Thoughts, anyone? Do you still use tapes for backup? Are they reliable? Do
>they last very long?

We used to use tapes for backup but one day I realised the backups weren't
working. The Backup Exec software we used wasn't reporting any errors and I
had to do a restore every day to make sure the backup had worked. After
stuffing around for a long time trying to get it working reliably I gave up
and went to removable hard drives. It's simple, fast, reliable and easy to
upgrade. Drives last indefinitely and if they get too small for backups they
will be used to upgrade a PC.

A script runs chkdsk before starting and emails me a report of the backup
when it's finished. If a backup fails for any reason I know straight away.
Recovering a file only takes a few minutes. The system is so simple anyone
can look after it.

Once when the fileserver died we used the backup machine as a temporary
fileserver. It was a bit slow but it worked.

In article <edu4pc$s7n$>, _zealand
says...
>
> Thoughts, anyone? Do you still use tapes for backup? Are they reliable? Do
> they last very long?
>

Had a tape drive once. The tapes were hideously expensive (around 100 bucks),
the process was painfully slow (several hours for my hdd) and the tape drive
died within a year.
The data retention was not good - so consider that for a mini-tape that takes
3-5 hours to back up the machine or restore, can only be accessed
sequentially... then you got to do error checking and maybe several files are
bad ... man was I pissed off. Mind you, that was in the days before cd writers
were commonly available. I have never been tempted to get another, if you know
what I mean. IIRC I replaced it with a 135 Mb syquest drive which turned out to
be obsolete by the time it got delivered (in favour of the 250 Mb or
thereabouts). At least it worked a lot better. Died too, though.

Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> I was reading a (p)review of Windows Longhorn Server in the September issue
> of APC magazine, and was surprised to find out that it drops standard
> support for tape as a backup medium.
>

Presumably they think that tape belongs to the 'dark ages' of UNIX etc
and has no place for a go-ahead product like Vista. Or alternatively
they are conceding that those who want to get serious work done will be
using Linux and similar servers.

Reminds me of a party political billboard from years ago "Why vote
National or Labour - be modern vote Social Credit". Some Vista
publicity seems to be no better like NZ's Microsoft chief implying that
those using UNIX (presumably including Linux migrations) were living in
the dark ages. Weta workshops for one would not seem to share this
view.

It seems very lop-sided when some companies seem to have to have some
'token' Windows servers effectively to keep Microsoft salespeople off
their backs, while having a 'secret room' of Linux servers that the
Microsoft rep does not know about.

Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> I was reading a (p)review of Windows Longhorn Server in the September issue
> of APC magazine, and was surprised to find out that it drops standard
> support for tape as a backup medium.
>
> I've had very little exposure to tapes for data myself. But I was under the
> impression that they were the medium of choice for fast, cost-effective,
> high-volume backups.

Depends, but yes. Tape / LTO technology is good but as you grow in
volume tape units start to become slow and in-effectual. eg we back up
something like 14 Terabyte on a full backup night....this needs a 6 tape
unit LT03 to cope, Dell ML6030 (circa $120k)....

So you get to tier management, eg once a file is over 60 days old it is
rarely accessed and changed. So rather than use LTO's copy these files
to a SATA based replication system leaving pointers on the servers to
these, cheaper and faster than LTO. Then you only backup what has
changed....

Obviously they're not that popular any more, otherwise
> Microsoft wouldn't be leaving it to third parties to fill the gap.

YEep, it always has really. MS's support has always been pretty minimal,
I found that under NT4, and win2k that to get any meaningful support I
had to pay quite a bit for essential drivers for the tape units I
actually gave up and went with samba, amanda and tar are after all free.

"Lawrence D'Oliveiro" <_zealand> wrote in message
news:edu4pc$s7n$...
>I was reading a (p)review of Windows Longhorn Server in the September issue
> of APC magazine, and was surprised to find out that it drops standard
> support for tape as a backup medium.
>
> I've had very little exposure to tapes for data myself. But I was under
> the
> impression that they were the medium of choice for fast, cost-effective,
> high-volume backups. Obviously they're not that popular any more,
> otherwise
> Microsoft wouldn't be leaving it to third parties to fill the gap.
>
> Thoughts, anyone? Do you still use tapes for backup? Are they reliable? Do
> they last very long?

Almost all my big clients have tape backup and still use it as their main
backup along with a backup to a seperate HDD.
None have had problems (except the odd tape failing but thats usually due to
old age) so far and many have been running the tapes for quite a few years
now.

"thingy" <> wrote in message
news:45033970$...
> Depends, but yes. Tape / LTO technology is good but as you grow in volume
> tape units start to become slow and in-effectual. eg we back up something
> like 14 Terabyte on a full backup night....this needs a 6 tape unit LT03
> to cope, Dell ML6030 (circa $120k)....

"peterwn" <> wrote in
news::
>
> Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>> I was reading a (p)review of Windows Longhorn Server in the September
>> issue of APC magazine, and was surprised to find out that it drops
>> standard support for tape as a backup medium.
>>
>
> Presumably they think that tape belongs to the 'dark ages' of UNIX etc
> and has no place for a go-ahead product like Vista. Or alternatively
> they are conceding that those who want to get serious work done will
> be using Linux and similar servers.

It is also possible that MS realise that anyone who uses a tape drive uses
Veritas backup with Veritas drivers and have no need for support from MS
for the tape drive at all. To be honest I am surprised that MS took so
long to realise that the free backup software they provide has no
desirability in the marketplace.

There is a name for people that buy a tape drive without software and use
MS backup for writing to it - idiots!

--
Mark Heyes (New Zealand)
See my pics at www.gigatech.co.nz (last updated 27-May-06)
"The person on the other side was a young woman. Very obviously a
young woman. There was no possible way she could have been mistaken
for a young man in any language, especially Braille."
Maskerade

Ray Greene <> wrote in news:edu9bs$rc1$:
> On Sat, 09 Sep 2006 22:25:39 +1200, Lawrence D'Oliveiro
><_zealand> wrote:
>
>>I was reading a (p)review of Windows Longhorn Server in the September
>>issue of APC magazine, and was surprised to find out that it drops
>>standard support for tape as a backup medium.
>>
>>I've had very little exposure to tapes for data myself. But I was
>>under the impression that they were the medium of choice for fast,
>>cost-effective, high-volume backups. Obviously they're not that
>>popular any more, otherwise Microsoft wouldn't be leaving it to third
>>parties to fill the gap.
>>
>>Thoughts, anyone? Do you still use tapes for backup? Are they
>>reliable? Do they last very long?
>
> We used to use tapes for backup but one day I realised the backups
> weren't working. The Backup Exec software we used wasn't reporting any
> errors and I had to do a restore every day to make sure the backup had
> worked.

User error? Surely the verify option would give an error if the data on
the tape did not match the data on the HDD?

My understanding is that a backup with verify involves:
1. Sequentially write the data to the tape
2. Rewind the tape
3. Read the data from the tape and compare it to the data on the HDD.

All errors would be logged and it should be obvious from the log whether
the data wrote and verified successfully or not.

--
Mark Heyes (New Zealand)
See my pics at www.gigatech.co.nz (last updated 27-May-06)
"The person on the other side was a young woman. Very obviously a
young woman. There was no possible way she could have been mistaken
for a young man in any language, especially Braille."
Maskerade

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <_zealand> wrote in
news:edu4pc$s7n$:
> I was reading a (p)review of Windows Longhorn Server in the September
> issue of APC magazine, and was surprised to find out that it drops
> standard support for tape as a backup medium.
>
> I've had very little exposure to tapes for data myself. But I was
> under the impression that they were the medium of choice for fast,
> cost-effective, high-volume backups. Obviously they're not that
> popular any more, otherwise Microsoft wouldn't be leaving it to third
> parties to fill the gap.
>
> Thoughts, anyone? Do you still use tapes for backup? Are they
> reliable? Do they last very long?

I have many customers using tape drives - the tapes are cheap and can
easily be taken offsite for extra safety. The tapes are usually cycled and
one tape would not be used more than 50 times a year, replacing the tapes
every year or two would ensure that the failures would be rare. Generally
if last nights tape failed then you at least have the tape from night
before last.

No customer that I have ever dealt with has used MS software for backing up
to their tape drive. Most use Veritas Backup Exec with the Veritas
drivers. Therefore the demand for MS to provide tape support would be
virtually zero.

There are other ways of backing up the data, but tapes have some
advantages. An external HDD can backup a lot of data at a reasonable
price, but you would need multiple external drives to be safe - you never
want to overwrite the last good backup. DVD-RW disks only write about 4GB,
if your data exceeds 4GB then writing to DVD is a pain.

--
Mark Heyes (New Zealand)
See my pics at www.gigatech.co.nz (last updated 27-May-06)
"The person on the other side was a young woman. Very obviously a
young woman. There was no possible way she could have been mistaken
for a young man in any language, especially Braille."
Maskerade

XPD wrote:
> "thingy" <> wrote in message
> news:45033970$...
>
>> Depends, but yes. Tape / LTO technology is good but as you grow in volume
>> tape units start to become slow and in-effectual. eg we back up something
>> like 14 Terabyte on a full backup night....this needs a 6 tape unit LT03
>> to cope, Dell ML6030 (circa $120k)....
>
>
> Yeah thats one catch with Tape, once youve exceeded your tapes size youre
> kinda stuck unless you purchase a newer drive with newer tapes etc...
>
> Altho, does help if your clients do a cleanup once in a while. One of mine
> exceeded their 40gb tape to about 60gb. I went through their system and
> found 30gb of redundant/trash data that wasnt needed.
>
>

Our users never clean up...and to be fair some people's research has
20~30 year life/history, eg long term health monitoring....hence a
Centera archive solution.....almost indestructible (in terms of loosing
data) and legally verifiable....

MarkH <> wrote in news:dYIMg.200076$Df2.132450
@fe05.news.easynews.com:
> User error? Surely the verify option would give an error if the data on
> the tape did not match the data on the HDD?
>
> My understanding is that a backup with verify involves:
> 1. Sequentially write the data to the tape
> 2. Rewind the tape
> 3. Read the data from the tape and compare it to the data on the HDD.
>
> All errors would be logged and it should be obvious from the log whether
> the data wrote and verified successfully or not.
>

No.
What can happen is the data is written and checksummed, and verifies ok,
but the data itself is corrupted by the backup app before it gets to tape.
The data will verify fine, but when you restore a file it is filled with
garbage.
ALWAYS verify a random file by restoring and then OPEN IT!
I have been caught by this bug, and it really sucks.

On Sun, 10 Sep 2006 00:25:45 GMT, MarkH <> wrote:
>Ray Greene <> wrote in news:edu9bs$rc1$:
>
>> On Sat, 09 Sep 2006 22:25:39 +1200, Lawrence D'Oliveiro
>><_zealand> wrote:
>>
>>>I was reading a (p)review of Windows Longhorn Server in the September
>>>issue of APC magazine, and was surprised to find out that it drops
>>>standard support for tape as a backup medium.
>>>
>>>I've had very little exposure to tapes for data myself. But I was
>>>under the impression that they were the medium of choice for fast,
>>>cost-effective, high-volume backups. Obviously they're not that
>>>popular any more, otherwise Microsoft wouldn't be leaving it to third
>>>parties to fill the gap.
>>>
>>>Thoughts, anyone? Do you still use tapes for backup? Are they
>>>reliable? Do they last very long?
>>
>> We used to use tapes for backup but one day I realised the backups
>> weren't working. The Backup Exec software we used wasn't reporting any
>> errors and I had to do a restore every day to make sure the backup had
>> worked.
>
>User error? Surely the verify option would give an error if the data on
>the tape did not match the data on the HDD?
>
>My understanding is that a backup with verify involves:
>1. Sequentially write the data to the tape
>2. Rewind the tape
>3. Read the data from the tape and compare it to the data on the HDD.
>
>All errors would be logged and it should be obvious from the log whether
>the data wrote and verified successfully or not.

It should be obvious, but I never got it working reliably. I spent a lot of
time looking for answers but in the end I never solved the problem. Restores
would fail when no errors had been logged. It must have been software as we
replaced the tape unit and the problem continued. I wiped the HDD and
reinstalled everything, still wouldn't work reliably.

The uncertainty got to me in the end, I simply couldn't trust it. With HDDs
you know exactly where you are. Anyway we were getting close to outgrowing
the capacity of the tapes and I couldn't find a reason to continue with them.

On Sat, 09 Sep 2006 22:25:39 +1200, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <_zealand> wrote:
>I was reading a (p)review of Windows Longhorn Server in the September issue
>of APC magazine, and was surprised to find out that it drops standard
>support for tape as a backup medium.
>
>I've had very little exposure to tapes for data myself. But I was under the
>impression that they were the medium of choice for fast, cost-effective,
>high-volume backups. Obviously they're not that popular any more, otherwise
>Microsoft wouldn't be leaving it to third parties to fill the gap.
>
>Thoughts, anyone? Do you still use tapes for backup? Are they reliable? Do
>they last very long?
>
>ObLinuxBoosterSnipe: another interesting new feature in Longhorn Server is
>the "Server Core" mode, where the installation runs without any local GUI
>at all; just a bare command prompt to do initial configuration, with all
>the rest being controlled remotely. Strike 1: that means you still need a
>Windows GUI of some sort to manage the system, albeit on another machine.
>And Strike 2: somebody neglected to tell the IIS folks about this feature,
>so you can't install this on a machine running in Server Core mode.

thingy wrote:
> XPD wrote:
>> "thingy" <> wrote in message
>> news:45033970$...
>>
>>> Depends, but yes. Tape / LTO technology is good but as you grow in
>>> volume tape units start to become slow and in-effectual. eg we back
>>> up something like 14 Terabyte on a full backup night....this needs a
>>> 6 tape unit LT03 to cope, Dell ML6030 (circa $120k)....
>>
>>
>> Yeah thats one catch with Tape, once youve exceeded your tapes size
>> youre kinda stuck unless you purchase a newer drive with newer tapes
>> etc...
>>
>> Altho, does help if your clients do a cleanup once in a while. One of
>> mine exceeded their 40gb tape to about 60gb. I went through their
>> system and found 30gb of redundant/trash data that wasnt needed.
>>
>
> Hence a ML6030, 200 tape silo with 6 x native fibre LTO3 tape
> drives.....no tape changing for me....
>
> Our users never clean up...and to be fair some people's research has
> 20~30 year life/history, eg long term health monitoring....hence a
> Centera archive solution.....almost indestructible (in terms of loosing
> data) and legally verifiable....
>
Centerra is a clumsy hack, but it works...

How long does it take to back up 14 Terabytes to 6 tape units?

I'm looking for a solution that does about that amount. On current
speeds of getting the data off the disk, that'll take the best part of
three days.

In message <J5JMg.942198$>, MarkH wrote:
> The tapes are usually cycled and one tape would not be used more than 50
> times a year, replacing the tapes every year or two would ensure that the
> failures would be rare. Generally if last nights tape failed then you at
> least have the tape from night before last.

What kind of checking do you do for tape failures? Do you do any periodic
verification of older backups to ensure they can still be read?

In message <Xns983A8523C2ED0daveytaynospamplshot@203.97.37.6>, Dave Taylor
wrote:
> MarkH <> wrote in news:dYIMg.200076$Df2.132450
> @fe05.news.easynews.com:
>
>> User error? Surely the verify option would give an error if the data on
>> the tape did not match the data on the HDD?
>>
>> My understanding is that a backup with verify involves:
>> 1. Sequentially write the data to the tape
>> 2. Rewind the tape
>> 3. Read the data from the tape and compare it to the data on the HDD.
>>
>> All errors would be logged and it should be obvious from the log whether
>> the data wrote and verified successfully or not.
>>
>
> No.
> What can happen is the data is written and checksummed, and verifies ok,
> but the data itself is corrupted by the backup app before it gets to tape.
> The data will verify fine, but when you restore a file it is filled with
> garbage.

In message <dYIMg.200076$>, MarkH wrote:
> My understanding is that a backup with verify involves:
> 1. Sequentially write the data to the tape
> 2. Rewind the tape
> 3. Read the data from the tape and compare it to the data on the HDD.

Good idea, but it probably won't work if your comparison is being done
against the live system, since inevitably some files will have changed
between the start of the backup run and the subsequent verification.

You'll need to take some kind of static snapshot of the live system and do
your backup and verification against that.

Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> I was reading a (p)review of Windows Longhorn Server in the September
> issue of APC magazine, and was surprised to find out that it drops
> standard support for tape as a backup medium.
>
> I've had very little exposure to tapes for data myself. But I was under
> the impression that they were the medium of choice for fast,
> cost-effective, high-volume backups. Obviously they're not that popular
> any more, otherwise Microsoft wouldn't be leaving it to third parties to
> fill the gap.
>
> Thoughts, anyone? Do you still use tapes for backup? Are they reliable? Do
> they last very long?
>
> ObLinuxBoosterSnipe: another interesting new feature in Longhorn Server is
> the "Server Core" mode, where the installation runs without any local GUI
> at all; just a bare command prompt to do initial configuration, with all
> the rest being controlled remotely. Strike 1: that means you still need a
> Windows GUI of some sort to manage the system, albeit on another machine.
> And Strike 2: somebody neglected to tell the IIS folks about this feature,
> so you can't install this on a machine running in Server Core mode.

Has anyone tried the Iomega REV drives yet? I see there's now a 70GB
version available as well as an autoloader.

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